I Go Where You Go
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: What Is and What Should Never Be tag story: This time he has no one to come back for.


**I Go Where You Go**  
K Hanna Korossy

The life they led had never seemed quite so…shabby before.

Dean lay on the bed because, frankly, he didn't have the energy to do much else, and let his eyes travel over the room. Faded curtains limp over dusty blinds. A tired painting of a seashore above the bed, kin to a thousand others like it in a thousand other motel rooms. A carpet so stained that they didn't dare venture across it in bare feet. Two sagging beds. Dull. Lifeless. A pale imitation of what should be.

His mind's eye conjured a comparison. Bright wallpaper and furniture. Family pictures everywhere. A soft sofa, fragrant with a tinge of perfume. Warmth, color, life. And his mom.

Dean closed his eyes and turned his face into the pillow.

Sam thought it had hurt to leave the genie's reality because of all Dean was giving up. But that wasn't the truth, and Dean hadn't bothered to correct him. The real pain lay in the refreshing of his own memories, of a mom who was more than pictures and vague impressions, of a Sam whose eyes sparkled, of a home that was permanence and comfort. Dean didn't want to live in the fantasy. He just didn't want to see how patched and dingy where he did live was in comparison. Ignorance had been…well, at least bearable.

His throat worked, pulling at the tense, inflamed skin of his neck. Dean buried his nose in the motel bedding, smelling cigarette smoke and bleach and finding none of the usual ease in the familiar smells. They couldn't even come close to the scent of fresh-cut grass and warm toasted BLTs and his mother's flowery shampoo.

He turned on the bed toward the door, moving slowly against the deep flu-like ache of his bones. Sam wouldn't return for a while yet, but Dean had rarely been so desperate for his brother's company. Sam could make him forget, or at least distract him from the grim tally of the motel room and of his life. Sam was the reason Dean had come back, the one good thing this reality had to offer that the fantasy couldn't compare with. Well, Sam and all the people they'd saved with their hunting, but somehow that latter didn't have the power it once used to. No, Sammy was the only motivation that mattered. And while this Sam was careworn and dark-eyed, he also looked at Dean with love and respect, and that alone kept the despair at bay. It was just enough.

He thought he heard Sam coming in, when muffled rock tones made Dean jerk. He grimaced as stiff muscles tightened, and looked around, confused, at any empty room. He must've fallen asleep; his mind was hazy, and it took a moment to realize he was hearing his phone, tinny notes that seemed jumbled and grating, playing somewhere to his left. Dean hadn't even realized he still had his cell and, for a moment, he was tempted to just let it ring. But it was probably Sam calling to ask something about the supplies he'd gone out to pick up, and he'd worry if Dean didn't answer. Dean pulled in a heavy breath, then rolled over.

Under the bed, he realized. He dropped an arm down, felt around under the tacky edge of the duvet. His fingers brushed plastic, and he wearily lifted up the phone, peering at the ID his eyes could barely focus on. Yup, Sam.

Dean slid the phone open and tucked it against his ear. "Yeah."

_"Is this Dean?"_

The unfamiliar female voice instantly sent a wash of adrenaline through his body, and Dean sat up with barely a hitch. "Yeah, it's Dean. Where's Sam?"

_"Are you related to…Sam Dio?"_

"Yes," he snapped impatiently. "He's my brother. Where is he, what's wrong?"

There was a small pause. _"Could you please come down to St. Jude's Medical Center? There's been an accident."_

Adrenaline was crushed by something far stronger, a sheer panic that pounded through his heart and squeezed his lungs. "Is he okay?"

_"Please, sir, if you could just come down—"_

"Is my brother okay?" Dean barked, fingers digging into the phone, the duvet.

Another pause. _"I'm very sorry…" _

And for the second time in twenty-four hours, Dean took a knife to the gut.

00000

Something calm and rational and utterly foreign had taken him over. Which was probably the only way he'd made it there at all.

Dean had gotten directions to the hospital, found his boots and wallet, and driven the ten-minute trip. He'd walked in the hospital main doors and told them calmly why he was there. He'd waited in a soft upholstered chair that might have had the same pattern as the bedspread back in their room. He'd followed the labcoated guy who came to look for him, down in the elevator two floors to the basement, along a narrow hallway to the morgue. And he'd stood patiently as the guy looked up which freezer unit they wanted and opened it.

It was simple: it wasn't Sam he was coming to see. No way it could be. The kid had gone out to buy food and some extra first aid supplies and antibiotics in case Dean's neck was infected. He'd promised to bring back a magazine after Dean had violently thrown away the one in their room. Maybe a Snickers bar if he was good, and Dean had smiled a little at that, remembering similar promises going the other way when they were kids. Sam was going to be gone an hour, two at the most, he'd promised, giving Dean that soft look that said he had his big brother's number. And right then, he'd needed Sam so badly, he couldn't care less if his brother could read him like a book as long as he was _there. _

And there he was. Lying on the mortuary slab.

Dean stared at him a long minute, eyes roaming over the tousled, blood-matted hair, the translucent eyelids, the way his neck gaped. Hit-and-run, the labcoat guy murmured.

"Get out," Dean said quietly.

The guy paused, then retreated, the morgue door thumping shut in his wake.

Dean took a breath, then reached out to touch Sam's hand.

It wasn't cold yet despite the frigid steel it lay on. Dean turned it easily, examining the calluses on the trigger finger and palm, the almost invisible scars on his wrists from being restrained one of many times. He traced the tiny scar from the skinwalker on Sam's shoulder, the burn mark Bobby's "unlocking" had left on his forearm, the healing line where they'd cut open his hand to do surgery when he broke it.

Dean patted his pockets down, looking for and finding his flask of holy water. He took it out and unscrewed the cap, dripping a little onto the bare inside of Sam's elbow. No reaction. And there was no sign of the bubbling decay of shapeshifter skin.

It was Sam. All the good left in Dean's life, laid out as cold and lifeless as the rest of this world.

Dean's chin trembled as his hand dropped to the unbloodied side of Sam's face, sliding up to fist in his hair. Then he lowered himself to his brother's forehead, his neck, breathing him in one more time, choking out a sob.

But he couldn't smell Sam, just smoke and bleach.

Dean eventually dragged in a ragged breath and straightened up. He carefully let go of Sam's hair, smoothing it down. Stared another few moments, opening his mouth to say something but finding only a strangled "no" waiting, which he swallowed back down. Then he turned and walked out.

He had a djinn to go find.

00000

Sam flew through his errands, rarely wanting so badly to get back to his brother.

The Dean he'd left behind in the motel room scared him. Not because he was afraid for his health—his neck, the blood loss, the torn wrists would heal—or that Dean would do something rash, not after giving up all he had to return to this reality. Sam wasn't even afraid Dean regretted the choice, although, man, how could he not? No, they would get through this. They always did, no matter what life threw at them.

What scared Sam was the thought of how much of his brother would be left after. Because it was obvious some part of him was still in that alternate reality with Mom and Jess and…Carmen?, and happily ever after.

Dean had talked about all the people they hadn't saved in that other world, as if that had been the reason he'd chosen to return, and Sam didn't doubt his altruistic brother would have made that choice. But he also knew what had really motivated Dean. It was the same anxious, starving look that had followed Sam around the motel room ever since. It was Sam. He didn't want to be gone too long because he had a feeling his presence was the only thing keeping Dean from falling completely into despair.

But Dean needed antibiotics at the least, and good food and a decent pair of jeans, because all of his were a mess. Somehow between having been in prison not long ago and a djinn's captive, Dean didn't seem to have many wearable clothes left. He'd told Sam to go, said he would just sleep meanwhile anyway, and Sam wondered if maybe, possibly, he needed a little space, too, to settle his mind back into this world. So he'd gone.

His heart, however, pulled him back toward the cheap motel like a kite on a string.

It was a relief, therefore, to jog back to the motel room and slide the key into the lock of their door. He'd been gone the upper limits of the time he'd promised, almost two hours, but he'd picked up a few other things for his brother while he was out, wanting to do _something_ for him. Sam crept into the room to avoid waking Dean in case his brother had, indeed, fallen asleep.

He needn't have bothered. The bed was empty.

So was the other bed. And the bathroom. And the space around back where he'd hidden the Impala the night before.

Sam's gaze ping-ponged around the room, heart a frantic beat against his ribs. "Okay, okay." Dean wasn't there. "Doesn't mean anything's wrong, right? He could've gone out for a hamburger, or to get some air." Maybe he just needed to drive a little; it wouldn't have been the first time communing with his baby and the open road had soothed something in him nothing else could.

But Dean hadn't come back because of the Impala. He'd been waiting for Sam to return from his errands, made him promise to call—

Sam grimaced and pulled out his phone. He dialed it, listened to it ring.

And go to voice mail.

Okay. "No signs of struggle," he muttered aloud; the room was too quiet. He took stock again. "Boots gone. Wallet…gone. He just…left, right?" _Why? _It didn't make sense, didn't feel right. At the very least, Dean would have left a note.

The laptop was open.

Sam cursed, dropping the bag he still held obliviously in his arm and flopping down in front of the computer. He hadn't used it since he'd left to go find Dean. Maybe his brother had gotten a call and gone to check something out? Or maybe something had occurred to him to follow up? Something maybe he'd learned about in his fantasy world? Although, that didn't explain the lack of a note…

The browser was still open, or rather, several were. Sam sifted through the windows, forehead pinching as he skimmed articles about disappearances, bodies found drained of blood, a serial killer's sick crime scene in an…empty…warehouse…

Oh, God. Sam sat back, reeling. Dean had been looking for a djinn.

There wasn't time to even begin to think about the ramifications of that. The only thing that mattered right now was finding Dean before he did something stupid. Well, something _else_ stupid.

One of the browser windows was open to mapquest. Dean hadn't even bothered covering his tracks, and that was something else to think about later. Sam scanned the page, noting the place was about three hours away, then tore out of motel, taking only the bag he'd dropped on the table.

Oh. No car.

It was late afternoon; most people would miss a stolen car fairly quickly. Renting a vehicle when one was freshly broken out of prison was a huge gamble. Sam scoured the area around the motel, looking for an answer.

Finding one in the used car lot down the block.

Twenty minutes later, James Hetfield was the proud owner of an '84 Toyota Corolla. He immediately took it for a long ride.

00000

Sam looked…really, really good.

Dean felt the burn in the back of his throat that he'd denied at the hospital, and took two steps toward his brother, almost surprised when Sam came and met him halfway. Screw manly backslapping; Sam was—had been—_dead_. Dean grabbed him in a fierce hug and buried himself in the scent and feel of his baby brother.

Either this genie was better than the previous one, or Dean's mind was more in control this time. This Sam didn't pull away or protest, just held him in return. And when they finally did pull apart, this Sam looked both genuinely happy _and_ gazed at Dean with familiar affection, even love.

And that was just Sam.

Dean melted against his mom, the burn an outright chunk of tears and longing in his throat. She rubbed his back and petted his hair. "It's okay, sweetheart. You're with us now."

It rang oddly false, but he smiled at her anyway, gave Jess a half-grin next. The blonde smiled back at him before winding her arm through Sam's.

That was when he turned and saw Dad.

This time he knew there were tears, but pressing his face into his dad's shirt—still the thick, dark flannel he always associated with John Winchester—wiped away the evidence, and his dad didn't say a word, just gruffly rubbed the back of his head. "Good to see you, son."

"You too, Dad," he choked.

Carmen was waiting her turn, and she fit against him as well as he remembered, her kiss all honey and warm breezes. Dean breathed it in like air.

But he kept finding Sam over everybody's shoulder, drinking in the sight of his happy, healthy, living brother.

"Welcome home," Sam said softly.

Then they dragged him into the house—into _the _house—for family dinner.

Dean's eyes didn't stop swimming as he joined them.

00000

The warehouse was dark and reeked of death and decay just like the other one had. The hair prickled on the back of Sam's neck as he slipped inside, his back always against walls because Dean wasn't there now to watch it, lamb's blood-dipped knife clenched in one hand. One way or another, he wouldn't be leaving here alone.

The Impala had been parked in front of the building, no attempt made to conceal it. Sam wasn't sure what to make of Dean's total lack of interest in keeping Sam—or the police—from finding him. His mind, however, had offered plenty of possibilities on the long drive there, none of them good. They were in bad shape when a Dean blinded by the need for revenge was the best explanation Sam could think of.

He suspected—feared—a far darker motive, however. What if Dean had had second thoughts about leaving the fantasy? What if he'd decided the fake but happy life truly was better? What if Sam wasn't enough to keep him here? Perhaps the obvious trail he'd left had been Dean's way of trying to explain and say goodbye. Not wanting to leave Sam wondering anything but _why?_

Had that place really changed Dean so much that he didn't think Sam would follow anyway?

Sam crept through corridors, rounded crates and corners. And lost his breath in a rush of horrible déjà vu.

Amidst a cluster of obviously long-dead bodies, Dean hung from the ceiling by a rope, a needle in his neck. His skin was almost as gray as the freshest cadaver beside him, his eyes half-open but lifeless. The only sign he gave of not being actually dead was the unsteady rise and fall of his chest. He looked worse than before, if that was even possible.

Sam gasped a "Dean!" and surged forward.

Drawing up short as the djinn stepped between him and his brother.

Fury twisted his face into a sneer, and he raised the knife. He was looking forward to this kill.

"Wait."

The genie's voice was calm, lightly accented, almost soothing. Sam would have ignored it, except…things he was about to end usually ran or fought back or cursed him. They didn't often ask him to wait. His eyes slid from the djinn to Dean and back again.

"He is where he is by his choice."

It was possibly the worst thing the creature could have said to him. Sam's heart clenched, eyes again traveling inexorably to his brother's inanimate face. "Why?" he gritted out.

"Do you not know?" the djinn asked placidly, the corner of its mouth turning up.

Sam spared it a glare, but his anger wasn't really for the monster. "Get him out or I'll kill you," he said flatly.

"He is where he is by his choice," the djinn repeated, then held up a hand, stopping when Sam raised the knife in counterpoint. "I would show you."

"Yeah, so you can trap me there with him? No thanks."

"He is happier there."

Sam glared at him. "Dean broke out of one of your kind's fantasies before."

"He has nothing to come back to this time," the djinn said with a smile. It look frightening on the tattooed, hairless face.

Sam's righteous anger drained away. "Why? What're you—?"

"He believes you are dead."

He was pretty sure his jaw dropped.

"He should never have left. The one he killed…" The djinn's face contorted, then smoothed out again. "I found your brother before he found me. I showed him a world with your death, and he believes he then sought me out. He will not want to leave this time."

Sam started. Was that even possible? The laptop…but maybe the djinn's power was greater than they'd realized, able to play out smaller fantasies in the real world to draw its prey in. Or maybe revenge was as powerful a motivator for it as it was for Sam.

He jerked his eyes away to his brother's face. The night before, Dean had looked, blank, absent. Now, his mouth was tight, his eyes crow-footed. His eyes hadn't even fluttered at the sound of Sam's voice. If the djinn was telling the truth—and it made a warped sense that it was—Dean had tracked down the creature for an even harsher reason than Sam not being enough. It was because he'd lost even Sam, too. And that had left him nothing, the strongest motivation of all.

Pain more than rage leaned Sam toward the djinn. "Let him go."

"I only offer. He accepted." At Sam's lurch forward, the djinn retreated a step and held up a hand. "There is one more choice. Yours. You may join him, be happy together. Your wish awaits."

Later, he would be a little surprised there wasn't even a flicker of temptation. But any choice that left Dean hanging there, his life draining out of him, wasn't an option and never would be, no matter what surface pleasures it seemed to offer.

Sam glanced to one side as if considering his answer, and used the misdirection to lunge forward. He didn't need to get the thing's heart with the blade; the djinn's soft middle was just fine.

It gaped disbelievingly at him as the blade sank in. Sam twisted the hilt, his jaw hard. The djinn's eyes flared blue, then went dark.

Sam pulled back, letting the dead thing crumple to the ground in front of him, before stepping over it to get to his brother.

"Dean! Hey, Dean." Voice dropping, Sam fumbled his hands against Dean's cold cheek, his sagging chin, trying to meet his eyes, but there was no one inside to connect with. Sam pulled the needle out—again—and threw it to one side, then reached up to saw at the ropes, eyes constantly flicking back to the still face. "I'll get you down in a second, man."

When the bonds finally parted, Sam caught his limp brother and lowered him to the floor. "Hey. Can you hear me?" He slapped Dean's face lightly. "Dean. Come back to me, big brother."

But there was no déjà vu this time. Dean stared right past him, not even stirring.

And for the first time, Sam believed maybe the djinn was right.

00000

"Sweetie?"

Dean glanced up, mustering a smile for his mother as she came into the kitchen. He closed his eyes like he always did when she stroked his hair or his face, pressing his temple lightly into her palm. But where once it had brought him joy and comfort, it only seemed hollow now.

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah, sure," he said, rousing himself, mouth stretching a little wider. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"You just seem…quiet." Mary sat across from him, smiling back. "When you two were little, Sammy was always the quiet one, following his big brother around so seriously." Funny, her voice seemed to echo on _big brother. _"You were the little chatterbox. When you got quiet, I knew something was wrong."

Dean gave her a bittersweet look. "That's weird. I thought Sam was the one who wouldn't shut up. He was always…" He swallowed and looked away.

Her hand found his on the kitchen table where he was cleaning some small auto parts. There were no weapons here to look after, but the familiar motions brought him some relief. His hands were greasy, and Dean tried to pull them away from her clean and soft ones, but she just tightened her grip. "You miss him."

It wasn't a question, and she meant Sam having gone back to school, but Dean nodded anyway, throat—_body, heart_—aching.

She nodded, too, stroking his hand. "Maybe you should go see him," she suggested, and if she felt his jolt, she didn't react. "He's still got weeks before exams—I know he'd like a visit from his brother. I'm sure Carmen would let you go for a few days."

"Sam wouldn't—" Dean had to break off to clear his throat, and his mind finished the line differently for him. _Sam wouldn't want me to be here. _"He's busy, Mom—he's got the bar coming up, the wedding…"

"He's never too busy for you, you know that."

Her smile was exactly how he'd pictured it a million lonely nights, and he wasn't sure if his memory was that good or if he was just being given what he expected. The smile he'd tried so hard to describe to Sammy… Dean choked on the thought.

His mom's grip tightened, as if she knew she was losing him. "Or you can stay here with us," she offered. "We just want you to be happy, sweetheart."

He looked up at her, searching her face, trying as he did every time to memorize each detail, each look. "He's still dead."

"No, baby." She leaned forward, caressing his cheek, and he noticed she didn't even ask him who he meant. "Not here he isn't."

She was as perfect as her smile: calm, wise, loving. Sam had gone back to school, but he called every day, making promises of trips together and nieces and nephews and settling in the same town. Carmen had started talking about kids, too. It was everything he wanted.

And it felt more empty every day.

"I'm sorry," Dean whispered. Then he bolted out the door, ignoring her call after him.

He was in the Impala before he knew it. Roaring down the street, not even knowing where he was going. There was nowhere left where Sam was alive, and this wan imitation had lost its luster. He couldn't live this lie, either.

Suburb gave way to farmland, the slightly rolling country of east Kansas. No convenient cliffs to drive off of, though, and Dean thought he'd choke from the despair. Maybe he should go back, find his dad's service weapon, do this right.

Or maybe the semi coming around the bend would be enough.

He hesitated just a fraction of a second. Thought of Sam teasing him about wearing a tux for the wedding. About the list of projects around the house his mom wanted him to do. About Carmen's smile. And the body in the morgue.

Dean jerked the wheel to the left, straight into the truck's path.

He had just enough time to appreciate the irony of going out t-boned by a semi, before the world erupted in sound and fury, then went silent.

00000

This couldn't be happening.

They'd done this already. Beaten a djinn at its own game. There was no way Sam should've had to track Dean to a second lair, free his brother from captivity again, plead with Dean to be all right. And there was really no friggin' way he should've had to carry Dean out this time, to find another motel nearby in which to lay out his unresponsive body. To treat another puncture wound and abraded pair of wrists without even a flinch from his brother. To finally close Dean's eyes, unable to bear the empty stare any longer.

It wasn't fair.

He'd stripped and tossed Dean's soiled clothes, cleaned him up, and tucked him into bed under a pile of blankets. His heartbeat was too fast, his breathing labored; his body still hadn't recovered from the blood loss of before, let alone this second round. On the way to the motel, Sam had detoured to a nearby clinic and _liberated _a pint of Dean's blood type, and set up an IV efficiently and with too much practice. When the blood was gone and Dean's heart was a little less strained, Sam switched to IV fluids and antibiotics, more acquisitions from his clinic shopping trip.

The two of them were wanted, prison escapees now on top of everything. Sam would have taken the risk anyway if he'd thought a hospital would help Dean at all. But the girl they'd rescued last time had already been waking when they'd dropped her off at the local ER. Dean had yet to stir, even as pale color slowly crept back into his drab cheeks. He was lost in the djinn's world, and only he could get himself out.

Sam just wasn't sure he'd want to.

He kept himself busy for a while, setting up protections around the room, hiding the car from more mundane threats, doing inventory of what supplies they had. Their belongings, including their laptop, was still two hundred miles away in another motel room, but that would keep, and they had with them everything he'd bought plus the contents of the Impala's trunk. They were okay. They were safe.

He was alone.

Sam finally pulled up a chair right to the edge of the bed, his legs folding up sharply to fit, and started talking.

"Hey. So…you want to know what I remember from when we were kids?"

He had no delusions Dean could hear him, but maybe something would seep through his Eden's walls and reach him. Make him doubt his decision, his aloneness in the real world. Entice him back, because Sam had never felt so inadequate.

He hadn't quite dared to ask himself before what he would have done if he'd been the one in the djinn's world. Jess, Mom, school, no hunting: it was the normal life he'd longed for ever since he knew the Winchesters were different. It had bothered Sam, troubled him deep down where he would never let Dean see, that he couldn't answer for sure.

But he knew now. Nothing in this world or any other was worth doing this to the brother he'd have left behind.

Sam's flow of anxious rambling finally trailed off. Dean's hand was still cold when he slipped his own under it, wide palm easily accommodating Dean's bent fingers. He squeezed them, felt them spring up again into a half-curl as he let them go, and he quickly folded them back into his grip.

"Hey, I, uh…I know you're having a good time there with Mom and Carmen. It's not like there's a lot here to come back to, right? Yeah…" Sam glanced around the motel room, seeing the shabby accommodations, the absence of other loved ones, and his forced smile faded. "I just want you to know, man, I'm out here, no matter what you think happened before. And I'm gonna stay here until you get back, so just…hurry, all right? I'm not driving around in that cop-magnet if you're not here, dude."

It didn't feel like Dean heard him.

Sam's throat bobbed and he looked away. A minute later, he was back, launching into a detailed summary of what he'd bought when he'd been out shopping.

It seemed like years ago now.

00000

He drifted.

For some reason, he was surprised to realize he was lying down. There should've been…tension, arms stretched, and pain. At the very least, cold.

And he couldn't hear the rumble of the car. Or his Mom calling. Or even Sam yelling his name. Just a strained voice going on about…underwear?

Maybe somebody had found him, his mind tiredly pieced together against his will. Brought him in and…the nurse was a lousy conversationalist. Or maybe they'd called Henriksen already and this was some kind of prison…

He couldn't think. Didn't want to. Everything reminded him of Sam, including the voice and the bizarrely random choice of topic.

Actually…it sounded a lot like Sam.

Despite himself, Dean squinted his eyes open, if only out of morbid curiosity as to where he'd ended up this time. With his luck, the genie had wised up to the whole killing-yourself-in-dreams bit, and Dean would wake up in the ICU with his concerned Mom and girlfriend and brother around him.

But it was only Sam, bending over him with a concerned frown.

He knew instantly this wasn't law-school Sam, with his bright grin and innocent eyes. This Sam had shadows in his face and bags under his eyes, and looked achingly lost. At least, until he smiled at the sight of Dean.

This was his Sam.

But his Sam was dead.

Dean lurched up from the bed, feeling something in his arm tear, hearing Sam's sudden, "whoa, whoa," seeing those big hands reach for him. His mind screamed for him to escape, and Dean scrambled back as fast as his weak and heavy body would allow.

"Get away from me!"

"Dean, wait, it's me, it's real—"

"You're dead!" he snarled, hitting headboard and opting for floor. His legs didn't quite get the message, though, and somehow he ended up on his butt in the narrow space between the two beds.

Sam was already darting around the edge of the mattress, but he drew up short as he caught sight of Dean, who'd plastered himself back against the nightstand. Sam's face shifted, from relief and worry to something almost like sorrow, and Dean's chest twisted in automatic reaction. He couldn't turn that off even for a fake Sam.

"Where am I?" he asked instead, casting around for something, anything real to anchor himself in.

"Wisconsin. Remember? You went looking for a djinn."

Dean narrowed his eyes at the imposter, absently shivering. His head felt thick, worse than before, his stomach queasy, and he was freezing. Blood loss, his mind provided, as if he didn't frickin' know that already, but it didn't explain…any of this. Not the room, not the blood trickling off his arm instead of his throat. Not the worried giant bending over him, looking so geekily, stupidly, _painfully_ real, Dean was going to do something embarrassing like cry if he didn't end this _right now_. "Who are you?" he demanded.

"It's Sam." The long neck worked, the eyes going girly soft, except that Dean knew exactly how he felt. "The djinn made you think I was dead so you'd want to stay in the reality, but it's not true, Dean, I swear. You were already in the djinn's fantasy then. I'm not dead."

He had to think about that a minute before it made sense, but it did make sense. In a very mess-with-your-head kind of way, which was pretty much the djinn's MO. But it worked just as well that this was simply another layer of fantasy, unreality versus unreality like some sort of demented onion he was trapped in. And in the center, like every onion, nothing. Sam still dead. None of the lives worth living.

"I'm not dead." Sam's voice, pitched low, slipped under the door and through the cracks of his walls like they always did. A shapeshifter had tried to pass itself off as Sam once, but there had been something not right about it and it hadn't gotten to Dean. When Meg had possessed Sam, he'd responded to his brother's pain but hadn't sacrificed all for him because something in Dean had _known. _But this…

"It isn't real," he whispered, and screwed his eyes shut, because he was tired of being fooled. He was already cracking; one more pass through _Sam's dead_ and he'd break apart completely. Dean pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, feeling himself unraveling. Too many realities, and none of them _his. _

"Hey." Sam's voice was a caress as gentle as Mom's and somehow more real. Fingers pried carefully at his hands, thumbs rubbing the inside of his palms.

Dean blinked blobs of light out of his vision to see his brother crouched in his space, but it didn't feel claustrophobic. It never had.

"You're home now," Sam was saying. "You did it. Man, I don't know why or how, Dean, but you did it." A smile struggled free.

"Prove it," Dean ground out.

The compassion in Sam's eyes was killing him. Even if Dean didn't believe it, he so badly _wanted _to. "You know I can't. But if you're gonna try to kill yourself again to get out of here, you'll have to take me with you."

Dean flinched.

Sam folded Dean's arms in against his body, wedging a square of gauze in the crook of the bleeding inner elbow—pulled IV, Dean realized—as he did. He then reached up and snagged a blanket from the bed. He worked it behind Dean's curved back, over his shoulders, cocooning him in it. Trapping his arms, Dean couldn't help note, but the look in Sam's eyes was sober. He meant it. Any blow Dean took would have to be shared.

And that…he couldn't do. His own destruction he could face. Sam's had never been an option, not if there was a chance Dean was wrong.

Besides, he was really starting to believe he was wrong, that this was real.

Sam balanced on the balls of his feet and just watched him, face twisted in hurt for him, wanting to help but unsure how. And while Dean couldn't ultimately live with a fake Sam, he had to take a chance on one that might be real.

He worked his arms free and, also for the second time in two days, pulled his brother into a hard embrace.

This Sam's arms also went silently and immediately around him, but his face burrowed into Dean's neck as if receiving comfort instead of giving it.

Dean hung on to him, soaking Sam in like water into parched earth, until he could finally make himself let go. Then without explanation or even a glance, he pulled himself to his feet and, barefooted and bare-chested, staggered out of the room.

Sam went as far as the doorway and thankfully stayed there, watching him but offering him his space. Dean found himself trying to assess if that was normal Sam behavior or the djinn's tonicked-up version, and decided it seemed more the former. His Sam had learned to give him room, and that was what Dean needed at the moment. With Sam…not too far away.

He found the car behind the room just as his legs were ready to give way. He was tempted to check the trunk for weapons, but Dean already knew what he'd find. He just leaned heavily against his baby, sighing in relief at the unchanging gleaming and cold metal. Funny how she'd been the one constant in all the realities. Maybe the genies had known he'd needed one. Maybe it knew now, too, what Dean needed to see to believe, and was giving it to him.

But damned if he wasn't sure that was his little brother inching around the corner trying to keep him in sight with what Sam doubtless thought was stealth.

Dean gave him an exasperated glance that was correctly interpreted as permission. Sam quickly edged closer, leaning against the Impala's side panel, hands jammed into his jeans pockets. A minute later—Dean was surprised he'd lasted that long—he shrugged off his long-sleeved shirt and draped it over Dean's shoulders.

"The other you was still a wuss," Dean finally broke the silence, winding his hand into soft cotton to pull the front together against the chill air. "'Course, not like you could really tell the difference…"

Sam snorted but didn't take the bait. He just asked quietly, "Are you sure now?"

Dean turned to look at him squarely. "No," he said, and added the minute tightening of Sam's face to his running list of proof _for. _"But even if it's a screwed-up life, it's _our_ screwed-up life."

It wasn't exactly an answer, but Sam nodded like it made sense. And when a few minutes later he coaxed Dean back inside just like the mother Sam had never known, Dean decided it was answer enough.

00000

"You wanna do the honors?" Sam asked.

Dean hadn't waited for the invitation. His lighter was already out, and the chunk of wood he'd found on the ground quickly caught fire. With a stony expression, Dean pitched it through the open doorway.

The warehouse went up in a _whoosh_ of flame that had them both backpedaling, Dean snagging Sam's jacket sleeve to tug him as if making sure he was out of the danger zone.

They watched the place burn in silence, and as Sam glanced sideways at his brother, he wondered what Dean saw. Their dad's funeral pyre? The fire in their home? His dream life going up in smoke?

"It's just a fire, Sam," Dean said quietly, eyes still on the blaze.

Sam looked back at the building a long minute before he spoke, hesitating over the words. "Dean…what made you come back this time?"

Dean had told him most of the details over the last several days, in little bits and pieces. It was the most he could stand at a time, Sam figured, and he hadn't pushed. But Dean's revelations had painted an agonizing picture: identifying Sam's body in the morgue, the new and improved version of Dean's fantasy world in which he and Sam were close and Dad was still alive, and yet another way his brother had found to kill himself. Even the knowledge Dean had sacrificed the Impala along with himself bothered Sam more than he could say. His brother had rejected paradise not out of hope this time, but rather lack of hope.

And while Sam had been careful not to ask, he knew Dean still occasionally questioned that this was reality. The quiet scrutinies of Sam, the subtle tests, the keeping him in sight constantly had not gone unnoticed. But Dean was recovering physically and seeming to find his feet emotionally, and Sam finally had to know.

Dean tilted his head, giving Sam a small, sober smile. "Everybody there was dead," he said simply.

He hadn't thought of it that way, but his throat seemed to close up at the realization. Sam just pursed his lips and nodded, sidling a little closer to Dean as soon as he figured it wouldn't be too obviously for comfort. He figured he was probably still as transparent as glass, but Dean didn't say anything. They just stood together and watched the burning building.

They'd brought the bodies out before torching the place and laid them in the nearby grass; the smoke would attract authorities soon enough and the deceased would finally get their burials. Sam had already come back for his car the day before and abandoned it in the nearby town. The two of them should probably get out of there soon, too, but Sam had sensed Dean needed this closure, had been the one to suggest it despite his own fear of fire. And maybe it was wishful thinking, but something that had been pulled tight in Dean those last few days—since his return the first time, even—seemed to relax as the djinn and its lair turned to ashes.

Sam cleared his throat and nudged his shoulder against his brother's. "So, you wanna head back south, torch the other one, too? We still need to pick up our stuff."

Dean's mouth twitched. "Go on a cross-country tour, finding and smoking genies?"

"Could do worse," Sam drawled.

Dean breathed a laugh and turned back to the car, heading around toward the driver's side. Sam didn't fight him on it; they both had their ways of dealing. "Maybe. But it's not like they're all bad, Sam."

Sam frowned at him as he slid into the car. "Yeah?" he asked skeptically.

"I mean, what other thing we hunt makes you appreciate the life on the road, huh? Microwave food and crappy motel rooms?" Dean jammed the key into the ignition and, with one more grin at Sam, pulled the car out onto the road.

Sam raised an eyebrow, startled at the parallel to his own assessment of the little Dean had to come back to. But he got the message, and that Dean maybe wasn't one-hundred percent back yet, but was trying.

"And I didn't think it was possible, but genie-Sam had even worse taste in clothes than you do."

Sam blew out a breath. "Dude, enough already, I said I'd take back the Oxford shirt I got you!"

Close enough.

**The End  
**


End file.
